DAY 75: Volunteering with the local steam train fanciers

14 Nov

I'll get the ol' girl up and running in no time.

THE Victorian Goldfields steam train route is visible from my house, and there’s something pupil-dilating about legging it down to the tracks when the smoke comes over the trees and watching the black, huffing engine approach dead-on; like staring down a raging bull.

The 1880s-built railway is totally run by volunteers (compare its $2.5k government grant to the $10 million awarded to Belgrave’s Puffing Billy) and its line of entertainment is not yet as legendary as that of Bellarine’s Blues Train (see Day 18), but it’s a charmer all right.

I’ve decided to volunteer regularly for a bit of whatever – chain-gang work, litter duty, getting in the way in the engine cab – and I’m interviewed by Trish on the train as we trundle first class to Maldon, which is obviously the best interview ever. After rising through the ranks of guard, signalman and fireman, you can eventually work up to engine driver, which I’m pretty excited about, so Trish takes me up to the cab to meet Barry; a top chap who drives freight trains as his day job. He gets me pulling the whistle immediately (a touch too long, if the hands clamped to ears at Maldon station are anything to go by) and doesn’t scoff at my driver aspirations.

The smell of steam is heady as we wait for the engine to gulp down water from what’s essentially a giant tap. A bit of water bubbles up by Barry’s foot, down by the fuel valve, which apparently isn’t supposed to happen.

“It’ll iron his strides for him,” one engineer notes pragmatically.

“He’ll have an accident in his strides if it lets go,” hoots another.

Catherine is also in the cab. Her dad’s an enthusiast who has built to-scale models of trains and used to factor all family holidays around locomotives. She’s finally succumbed to the passion herself.

“I wish I had a passion,” says Trish wistfully. “With these guys you can tell… it’s love.”

Keeper? Yep, they’ll put me to work on the chain-gang in a coupla weeks.

DAY 74: Looking after a real life child

13 Nov

I HAVEN’T given anyone my undivided attention since 1989. I got away with it in my teens because I was troubled, in my twenties because I was a writ-err, and in my thirties because Gen Y 2.0 came along, with handsets for hands. It certainly won’t be tolerated by a child, though; hence my avoidance of them.

I’ve agreed to take Tiger-Jane, aged three, to the Melbourne Museum while her mum gads about doing her job… but anxiety sets in as I take the train down. What if I need to write things down/get out my computer/obsess quietly over some issue? And the irritation that trots beside me every day like a devoted spaniel… can it be outrun by a three year old on a sugar high?

We’re meeting in the café, so I scoff down a piece of cake before TJ sees it and then watch Nicole like a hawk to see what parent-y tactics she is employing. When Nicole leaves, TJ sets up a wail, with real tears, I’m impressed to note. Proper mothers look on as I pat the child beseechingly on the arm and promise her that we’ll see as many dinosaurs as she likes; not having the slightest idea if there are any.

Fortunately, the first specimen we come across is the skeleton of Phar Lap, which looks a bit like a dinosaur to the untrained eye. (How gruesome: “Phar Lap reunion: see his skeleton on display next to his hide”.) After perusing this spectacle, we set off at a cracking pace – no time to take in exhibits on 19th century working class Melbourne, Koori voices, or textile designers, apparently, but we do press some buttons. The one thing that does slow up my young charge is a tableau of policemen taking an Aboriginal child away from its mother. I’m terrified TJ’ll make a connection and start wailing for her own mother again, but instead she asks sombre questions about the scenario.

Eventually, the lure of the spotty biscuit, which I promised her on completion, reaches mystical, holy grail proportions, and we can put it off no longer. I have no idea how to buckle TJ into this unfathomable pushchair, seemingly designed specifically to get its wheels caught in toilet doors, so she gamely agrees just to balance as we head out in the rain. “Hey, lady,” she snaps, whenever we hit a bump.

A misty reunion with Mum (hers) and an explosion of chocolate follows, but I’ll stop writing now if that’s okay; I’m starting to sound like columnist for a Sunday magazine.

Thank you for a lovely day, lady.

Keeper? Her mum wanted her back.

DAY 73: Seeking ANGER MANAGEMENT

12 Nov

MY rage is as perilously close to the surface as a fart in a bath; liable to pop and ruin the mood at any second.

I don’t often take it out on other people, although on the occasions I have I count myself very lucky they haven’t clobbered me back – with the exception of one high-spirited street brawl, where they did. But any inanimate objects around me get what for, and have done since I was a child – which was awkward, as I was an animatist and afterwards I’d have to go around patting and apologising to skirting boards and brutally biro-stabbed maths books.

My seething disappointment almost got me arrested at 18 when I vandalised a phone box in a lather because I couldn’t get it to work. Instead, the police asked my mother to come and get me. What does a girl have to do to get taken seriously? I’m pretty sure if I was a bloke I would have been banged up by now, and I’m pretty sure I’d crumble like a fondant fancy after just one day in jail.

My temperament’s way better in my thirties, but still, my shaking-fist-at-sky moments are bugging me, so I decide to seek out help online through a number of anger management forums.

They’re highly strung places, unsurprisingly. Logging onto the first, one guy is indulging in a thinly disguised brag about giving someone a beating the night before – lingering lovingly on every blow.

“You are retarded and an alcoholic,” comes a terse reply. “A R-E-T-A-R-D. Glad I could help.”

Jeez, I hope that respondent doesn’t step up to help me.

“The symptoms you describe sound as though they’re at the high-functioning end of autism,” says ‘Candid’ on one board after I describe my ish-ewes. Isn’t calling someone autistic the new ADD though? Gets bandied around an awful lot.

Jeff, on another board, advises me to come up with a code word that non-inanimate objects can hiss at me when I get riled up. This, he reckons, is better than the ever-inflammatory “calm down”… but I have a sneaking suspicion someone using a codeword on me might have the exact same effect. Maybe I’ll mutter a quiet prayer for the person, as 12-step help groups recommend.

For the inanimate objects problem… well, first off I’m going to try and not take things so personally – if the printer gets jammed, for example, realistically it’s not doing it just to wind me up – and secondly I’m going to stick money in a swear box for every ladypart I list at the top of my lungs. The money has to go to charity, otherwise I’d just be lining my own pockets.

Some forum posters suggest an all-natural hypoglycemic diet – basically no sugar or caffeine, and eating as close to real, untreated food as possible – which I have noticed works, but really sucks. I’ve also sent off for a rock salt crystal lamp, which floods a room with negative ions when all the positive ions from electrical appliances and looming storms (looming storms send me particularly nutso) are getting you all wound up.

There’s free anger management counselling available at Psych Resources. It’s all about listening to what your anger has to say (other than “That’d be about right, you absolute %$#ing %#$@!” and other quaint Basil Fawltyisms). There are a series of questions to help you find your “unique emotional truth”, and you can then post this truth at the end, which I do.

Keeper? Yes.

Hey – I asked people what calming code word(s) they’d come up with, and they said: “bunnies”, “puppies”, “boobies”, “take the day off work”, “easy, tiger”, “rotary engine”, “aaaagaadoodoodoo”, “you are right I am wrong”, “serenity now”… What would you suggest? Comment below. (Please.)

DAY 72: Learning tolerance at Crown Casino

11 Nov


THERE are scads of bars in the Crown Entertainment Complex. My mission is to sit through three songs from a live act in three such bars. I’ve collected the set lists, to prove I did it.


BAR 1: Tangerine
Against the gallop and kerching of pokies, Chunky Jam are ripping through their set.
1. Proud Mary – Creedence Clearwater Revival
2. Brown Eyed Girl – Van Morrison
3. Superstition – Stevie Wonder

Bar 2: Atrium
This bar opens out into the games room. It’s a big joint, but weirdly I can smell Calvin Klein’s CK One all the way through it. Are they pumping it through the vents? Anyway, Stuart Wyatt is tinkling the ivories of the grand piano, in an extravagantly floral fashion.
1. Still the One – Shania Twain
2. Fame … no … I know this one … I’d Rather Be a Hammer? … Gah! Too abstract. Next!
3. It’s some kind of early ’80s theme tune … I’m picturing a horse galloping across fields, or possibly a dog … WAIT!! It’s Eternal Flame by the Bangles. Phew.

Bar 3: JJ’s
This bar’s heaps classier than it sounds, but the seat of the grand piano is vacant. Not my fault, nor my problem. Mission: accomplished.

Keeper? Actually, yes. I find it hard to resist a fountain sweeping down alongside a black marble staircase.

DAY 71: Learning about the local Sudanese community

10 Nov

I’VE been really enjoying hurling myself into the local community lately. Okay, I suppose it’s less a hurl than a dipped toe, what with the ukulele classes and lawn-mowing and whatnot, but I have great plans afoot (geddit) for chat warbling, bird watching, wood chopping and steam railways – you’ll see. Hell, I’m even getting a white ute.

There’s also a healthy Sudanese contingent in Castlemaine that hasn’t been anywhere near my toe, and I’ve been curious as to how a community came to be established in this little town in particular. The screening of No One Eats Alone, directed by a local resident, tells the stories of Sudanese women who have settled in Victoria, and it’s stacked with personable characters. The unanimous hit with the audience at the Theatre Royal seems to be when the thigh-slappingly jovial Anghere unapologetically describes herself as the “white dot” of the family — the Sudanese equivalent of a black sheep.

Keeper? Yep, I’m enjoying pretty much everything I’ve seen posted on a local noticeboard so far. Onwards to the Rotary Club!

DAY 70: Taking the Melbourne Town Hall tour

9 Nov

I’VE just spent the past hour Google imaging John Batman, after finding out on the Melbourne Town Hall tour that he was a “syphilitic, whoring alcoholic” with half his face eaten away by the sexy disease. Unfortch, he’s always depicted from the side for this very reason, so no joy. Don’t Google image “syphilis” while you’re eating lunch at your desk, by the way.

On an entirely separate note, here's former Moomba King Molly Meldrum.

Our tour guide’s a lovely old chap who lingers particularly long at the Town Hall pipe organ, behind which we explore three floors and endless rooms full of springs, pipes and whirligigs. Agatha Christie could have plotted an excellent death within the machinations of a pipe organ.

Our guide tears up when he concludes that it’s Melbourne’s most wondrous trophy… yet most people don’t even know it’s here.

Synthy bits of the organ.

Keeper? Done this one!

DAY 69: Walking around a cemetery before work

8 Nov

IT’S eight o’clock and a beautiful morning, so I take the tram to St Kilda Cemetery for a browse. This is a pretty cool Art Deco grave — I wouldn’t mind mine looking like this, for future reference. You can even call me Ralph.


It’s pretty unfathomable (for me) to see headstones bearing the names of whole families, children included, then finished off with “God’s Will Be Done”. You’d have to grit your teeth when requesting that line from the stonemason, wouldn’t you?

Keeper? Yes, will have a saunter around the cemetery in Carlton next time.

DAY 68: Lighting a fire… totally unsupervised

7 Nov

I GO through two boxes of matches and 85 in-head renditions of “Fire… I bid you to burn” before this baby finally gets going in my brand new fire pit (see Day 54). I have to dance around putting spot fires out a fair bit, but I keep it going for a couple of hours without any complaints from Doreen next door or the bastards over the fence.

NB: I have made a fire before at Girl Guides, but it was under supervision. This is not.

Keeper: Yes; very satisfying, addictive work, and I like the way I smell all smokey.

DAY 67: Piloting a plane

6 Nov

I like the way they've tethered it like an old goat.

MY instructor’s name is Andrew, and as we’re yakking away, 7000ft over Bendigo, I ask him why he got the urge to fly. He says he’d always harboured a secret wish to, but thought it too expensive for the likes of him. Then his brother died at 49 and his wife nearly followed suit. That’s when Andrew philosophised you can’t take it with you when you go. He’s been taking people like me for joyrides at $120 an hour ever since.

Upon my arrival at the flying school, Andrew offers me a biscuit and a cup of tea, and draws unfathomable diagrams on a whiteboard. I like him; he’s funny. Then he walks me around a tiny Tecnam P 92 Echo Super so we can check things aren’t going to fall off or fly open.

Climbing in is an intimate experience. I have to fold myself into the left-hand driver’s seat (thankfully this thing has dual controls), and there’s not much in the way of elbowroom. We run through the checks and crank up the propeller, then Andrew gets me to steer us down the runway before he gets us up in the air.

We get some sharp bumps and knocks off kilter as we’re on our way up, which may be “just the atmosphere”, but has me shutting my eyes and gripping the seat with one hand all the same. Andrew’s a trusting sort, as he gets me to keep hold of the joystick with the other hand, even though I might feasibly jerk it in fright if I was a spaz.

Once we clear most of the clouds, though, we’re okay, and weirdly my fear of heights doesn’t kick in – I swore more in my driving lesson.

Andrew sits back with a grin and tells me to just go wherever I want, so I point the thing towards Echuca, avoiding bloody great clouds that loom up here and there. You gotta treat clouds almost like solid objects when you’re in a plane this small, as they’ll throw you around a bit. Oh, and you can’t see.

You steer with both your feet and your hand, but it feels almost impossible to flip this thing over. Every now and then, Andrew fires up the throttle so that the nose veers upwards, and gets me to correct it. Same the other way. On our way back down he shows me how to hug clouds like you would a roundabout, and he goes skimming around one at a cracking pace, like a gleeful kid.

We land with the same grace as a pelican – legs akimbo and arse first – but that’s Andrew’s doing, not mine, and it’s just because the wind comes off the trees and chucks you around. I’m pleased to note my knees aren’t knocking a bit when I clamber out.

Keeper? Going back next week, as a matter of fact.

DAY 66: Getting a helicopter view of the world

5 Nov

Looks non-lethal enough.

I ADMIRE those with a helicopter view of the world – and nobody has more of a helicopter view of the world than a helicopter. Mike meets me by the boathouse to give his remote control one a whirl.

He’s attached a dodgy-as camera to it that’s secreted inside a Bic-style lighter, which can give you great shots of the city or sunbathers. The helicopter’s pretty hard to control. It threatens to hover off into the Yarra a few times, and it seems the slightest gust of wind or kack-handed move sends it crashing down onto the tarmac. Which is awesome. Mike is very sporting, even when his favourite toy whizzes off to explore a tree for a bit.

Keeper? Has anyone made a remote control pterodactyl yet?

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